The Global Rivers Project

Mississippi Rising

Spring has sprung. The river is rising. It's raining again today. Greetings from a cheap chain motel near the Mississippi River. I'm waiting out the rain by taking some time to write this post.

If you have followed the news in the central US, you know that the Mississippi basin has been getting train loads of rain. (A Weather Channel meteorologist described the systems as a train dumping car after car of rain on the region.) I will post updates to this blog as my travels continue.

Some are comparing the current weather events to previous historic floods in 1993 and 1927. When you look a this US National Weather Service map of flood risks, note the "V" of red, yellow, and purple markers that follow the Missouri River and Ohio River into the Mississippi River.

National Weather Service Flood Risk

Flood risk as of Friday, March 28

What does your river mean to you?

What does your river mean to you? We posed this question at the start of the Global Rivers Project and you see it in the blog header above. Through our documentary productions, we are examining the ecological, cultural, economic, and political significance of our chosen five rivers. In these blog entries we now see the river stories emerging.

David Herzog of the Missouri Department of Conservation referred to the Mississippi River as a "canary in the coal mine" and as a "book with many chapters" when asked about the river's significance. To Americans living in the middle United States, the river means drinking water and waste water and water for crops. If the river is not healthy, the entire river basin could have similar symptoms. The first chapter of Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and meanders through an idyllic landscape of wild rice, woodlands, and prairie. At the first lock and dam near St. Paul/Minneapolis, the river meets the US Army Corps of Engineers. Drama and comedy ensue in following chapters as human after human tries to tame the river. Tries to manage it. Tries to bring its natural force under control.

To many in the middle US, the Mississippi River is a place of solitude or seclusion. To some, fishing on the river is a religion. To others, the river offers the quest for really big fish. The Mississippi catfish is legendary. To explorers Joliet and Marquette, he was a demon “who would engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.” For this project I spent time with fishermen whose pursuits included netting and trapping, casting and waiting, and drilling through ice on the frozen winter Mississippi.

What does the river to me? Cue the banjoes… The Mississippi River looms large in my memory of growing up in the Midwest. Businessmen and settlers established towns and cities along my river. Lewis and Clark began their westward expedition near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Mark Twain took his name from my river. Saarinen built his Arch by my river. A local television program I watched in the 60’s started each day’s episode with a greeting from the Mighty Mississloppy.

As I continue with this documentary, I am discovering new “chapters” of the Mississippi story. I am also now aware of how baptisms in the Mississippi unite with ritual dips in the River Ganga. How political struggles on the Danube might compare to Civil War strategies at Vicksburg. How alien species are invading the Rio Grande and the Mississippi and the Amazon. So I end this post with the starting question:

What does YOUR river mean to YOU?

Stories Surfacing

Here are some of the themes that have surfaced as I am working on the Mississippi:

The Mississippi River is the "canary in the coal mine" and the health of this river is an indicator of the health of the greater environment.

The US keeps trying to control the river. We dredge it. We dam it. We divert it.

The Mississippi is a major highway for barges filled with grain and coal. Eagles, ducks and geese use it as a flyway heading north and south.

Seasons on the river.

Invasive species.

Live! from the Mississippi River

If you want to check to see what is happening on the river, click on these live web cams on the Mississippi River.

Mississippi River web cam at Qud Cities (Illinois and Iowa, USA)
(There are two cameras now that monitor both sides of the river
Mississippi River web cam at Lock & Dam 25, Winfield, Missouri USA

Mississippi River web cam at La Crosse, Wisconsin USA
(note: When this link loads, look down the page, in central right of the screen. Click on CenturyTel Cam)

These web cams are all on the Upper Mississippi so you can see seasonal changes on the river. If you see a brown blur in the picture when you look at Lock & Dam 25, you probably caught an eagle in flight. Many eagles like to fish here in the winter. I was told that the males like to fish for breakfast in the mornings. The females show up for lunch around noon.

Seasons on the Mississippi

The Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. There it is possible to walk across the Mississippi. It bears no resemblance to the image we generally conjure of the Mighty Mississippi. In summer, cattails and wild rice grow along the clear waters.

We try to control the river. We dig. We dam. We dredge. We divert. At Alma, WI I looked down on the river from a high bluff to the locks and dam below.

I grew up in Southeast Missouri, not far from the Mississippi River. We called it the Mississloppy. We recited tales of Lewis and Clark. We sandbagged it in rainy seasons. With the help of Sarah Oakes and Danny Brown of the Missouri Department of Conservation, I had a chance to get up close and personal with the Mississippi.